Everything Falling Into Place
by jeffwik
Summary: Jeff Winger has a plan. Annie Edison has a problem. A what-if kind of thing.
1. Chapter 1

Jeff Winger had a plan. He'd had several plans, over the course of his life. The first plan was to go to college and law school and become a divorce attorney who could watch, impassively, as marriages disintegrated and children felt abandoned, and then get in his car and leave. This plan fell through his sophomore year at college, when it turned out that the tools he'd relied on to get him through high school — a ready smile and an understanding of what made people tick — were less applicable than skills he didn't have, like memorizing and retaining facts.

The second plan still had 'divorce attorney' as its aim, but involved a few websites, a diploma-replacement service, and an online university. Jeff picked one based in Bogota, so he could tell people his degree was from Colombia and if they assumed he'd meant Columbia, that was their fault. The second plan worked well for several years; actually being a divorce attorney involved a lot more smiling and understanding people and a lot less fact-memorizing than school had. But eventually one of the assholes at his firm ratted him out to the court, probably because Jeff was going to make partner before them.

He'd managed, though. Jeff had concocted his third plan on the spot, during a disciplinary hearing before the state supreme court, when one of the 'actual' lawyers described his fraud in exhaustive detail and asked him what, exactly, he proposed to do to make it right. Ready smile, understanding people, and thinking quickly: these were the tools he used to convince the court that his crime was not unforgivable, and that he didn't even need law school, what with his successful career. No, what he really needed to demonstrate his academic capability and be a lawyer again was a bachelor's degree from an actual, accredited institution. Any institution.

Step one: suffer through four years of inane distribution requirements, using smiles and understanding when possible and quick thinking when necessary. Jeff figured that wouldn't be too hard; Greendale was a joke, academically. Most of the professors wouldn't be any more interested in teaching than he was in learning, and the ones who were he could plan around. And since he wasn't out to impress anyone, just to fulfill the requirements and get back to his job at the firm, he only needed the bare minimums: a 2.0 GPA and a major in General Studies. That was step two: graduate with a BA in nothing in particular and a 2.0 GPA, in four years. Step three: a celebratory steak dinner for one. Step four: go back to Hamish, Hamish & Hamlin like nothing had happened.

That was the plan, and it was a good plan. Four years, head down, doing the time. He wouldn't even have to learn anyone's name.

* * *

Halfway through the first day he hit a snag, in the form of a distractingly pretty girl. Normally Jeff wasn't distracted by pretty girls — he was a grown man, after all, not a moony hormonal teenager. This one was different, though; she was almost offensively pretty. During the Spanish teacher's quasi-coherent reading of his course syllabus, Jeff found his gaze drifting to the back of her head. Even the back of her head was gratingly pretty.

It wasn't even sexual, not really. It was more like she was a living Jackson Pollock painting. He could imagine himself sitting in an art gallery, staring at her profile for hours. Jeff found this unexpected distraction irritating in the extreme. He'd barely gotten through half a day of his four-year plan and already he was sidetracked. After class he approached an Arabic guy whom he'd seen talking to her before class started.

"Excuse me, buddy," he said, "you know the time?"

The Arabic guy straightened visibly, then turned and fixed Jeff with a very intense stare, disconcertingly similar to the way Jeff suspected he'd been staring at the distracting girl. "Yes, thank you," the guy said, nodding.

Jeff and the guy stood there, looking at each other for about a half-second before Jeff cracked. "What time is it?"

"My name is Abed," he responded, as though this were an appropriate answer to the question. "We're both in Señor Chang's Spanish class."

Abed was proving to be more trouble than he was worth. "Great, thanks," Jeff said. He started to turn away, in the direction he was reasonably certain the pretty girl had gone.

"I'm sorry," Abed said behind him, and something in the guy's tone made Jeff pause and turn back around. "I was trying to be funny, when I didn't answer your question. I thought we might have some fun back-and-forth and maybe become unlikely friends, if I got the ball rolling."

"It's okay," Jeff said, taken aback by Abed's bluntness. "My name's Jeff."

"Hi, Jeff," said Abed. "It's five after twelve."

Jeff decided to try one more time. "What's the deal with the hot girl from Spanish class? I saw you talking to her. Brunette, yay tall?" He gestured to about the level of his bicep.

The guy — Abed — shrugged. "Well, I only talked to her once while she was lending me a pencil, but her name is Annie, she's 28, her birthday is in December, her parents live in town but she hasn't spoken to them in a decade, and she's getting her life back on track after kind of dropping out of everything at the end of high school. Oh, and she gets really focused during classes, or she used to, and she's trying to build good habits, so she can't waste time talking to me, and she's sorry she didn't mean waste, that came out wrong."

"Holy crap," Jeff said, impressed. "Thanks, Abed."

"Not a problem," said Abed, blinking at Jeff in an oddly intent fashion. The day before Jeff wouldn't have thought 'intent' was an adjective that could be applied to the act of blinking, but the day before he hadn't met Abed. "Want to form an unlikely friendship?"

"Sure," Jeff said absently. He'd just spotted the brunette — Annie — crossing the quad and heading towards the cafeteria. In Jeff's mind he was already moving on to the next stage of his latest plan, which was just like his previous plan, except it incorporated sleeping with her as soon as possible. Historically, sleeping with a woman was the best way Jeff knew of to kill his interest in her, and he'd barely heard a word of the syllabus rant. It was a small alteration and one that he was confident he could achieve with minimal fuss. Jeff patted Abed on the shoulder and followed Annie into the cafeteria.

She was already at the front of the lunch line, paying. Jeff got in the back of the line and tried not to stare at her, while also trying to figure out what about her was so damn compelling. Flawless skin, fine bone structure, incredible hair? Those were a dime a dozen; he'd seen women like her every day back when he'd been a lawyer. He'd see women like her every day again, once he'd completed his plan. Probably it was because of the environment. Everyone at Greendale, students and staff and faculty alike, had a sort of weary depressive wearing-the-same-socks-as-yesterday vibe, like the school was a magnet for people who'd given up on life.

Annie didn't look like she'd given up on life, though. She stood out like a sunbeam cutting through fog.

But, Jeff thought, rolling over Abed's words in his mind, she had self-destructive habits and she hated her parents. She was just the type to enjoy a no-strings one-off, which meant she was Jeff's type.

By the time Jeff had his lunch, she was sitting alone at a booth, eating a sandwich with one hand and wielding a highlighter in the other. A Spanish textbook was open in front of her.

"Hey, Spanish, right?" Jeff asked, strolling up all casual-like.

"No thank you," she said without looking up.

"Huh?"

"Whatever you were going to offer me. No thank you." She glanced up then. They made eye contact for a fraction of a second, and then she was back in her book.

"I wasn't going to…" Jeff grinned as disarmingly as he knew how, which was extremely disarmingly. The effect was somewhat impaired by her failure to look up. "I just wanted to say, I saw you in Spanish class…"

She nodded, still not looking up, dammit.

Jeff felt his window of opportunity closing. "And I thought you might be interested in my Spanish study group, that I'm putting together."

That got her looking up, a perplexed expression on her face. "You spent the class playing with your phone," she pointed out.

"Yes, but… wait," Jeff said, "how did you see that? You were in the front row. Were you sneakily checking me out?"

Annie's cheeks turned slightly pinker. "You're putting together a study group?" she asked, ignoring his question.

"I'm just taking the class for an easy credit," he said through his smirk. "I'm actually a Spanish tutor — board-certified."

She scoffed. "What kind of board certifies Spanish tutors?"

"The best kind of board," he said smoothly.

Annie gave a little half-laugh, and shook her head, looking back down. "I think I'm good, thanks."

"I'm sure," Jeff said quickly. "You seem like a good student. Quick learner. Not like most of the study group. Although, you know, they say the best way to really learn something is to teach it to someone else."

She hummed.

"The group meets in Study Room F at four," he said, naming a time and place at random. "Can I count on you?"

"I wouldn't." Annie was still intent on her book, or pretending to be. But she was smiling, and maybe she wasn't making eye contact with him for a different reason.

* * *

The hook was baited; now all he needed to do was wait. His schedule, and the plan, would keep him busy in the meantime. After lunch Jeff was signed up for five different classes in the same time slot. Greendale had hilariously lax add/drop requirements, both academically and for billing purposes. Jeff intended to attend each of the five classes once and keep the one that seemed easiest. With any luck he'd breeze through four years in this fashion without having to learn basically anything.

First up was Chemistry! Jeff wasn't excited about it; Chemistry!, with an exclamation point, was the name of the class. He spent the period screwing around with his phone, calm and relaxed and definitely not anxious about any aspect of community college.

Finally four o'clock rolled around. Late enough she'd probably be done with classes. Studying turned to drinks turned to dinner turned to back to his place. Easy as pie. And if she didn't show up, hey, it wasn't a big deal.

It wasn't a big deal.

Still, four o'clock and there she was. He gave a calm little wave when she stuck her head in the study room. She wore a very flattering sundress and a nervous smile that suggested she knew what he was up to. "Here you are," she said as she sat down at the table next to him.

"Yes! Welcome." Jeff made a little show of setting down his phone and stretching.

Annie, in turn, made a little show of looking around the study room. "Am I early, or…?"

He shrugged. "You're the first to arrive. The others should be here shortly." Or they would if there were any others, which there weren't.

She nodded. "I'm sure they will be."

"So, first thing, if I can get your info on the contact sheet here…?" Jeff slid the sheet towards her. He'd had the forethought to label three columns, NAME and EMAIL and PHONE, and include his own information in the first row, just to sell it.

"Before everyone gets here," Annie said as she wrote down her email address, "we should go over the lesson plan and make sure we're on the same page."

"Sure," Jeff said. He had no intention of doing that. "But, you know, I want to hear a little bit about who I'm studying with — tell me about yourself."

She smiled bashfully. "Oh, there's not much to tell."

"Come on." Jeff leaned back and looked at her. "How'd you end up here?"

Annie seemed to consider it for a second. "All right. I, um…" She swallowed. "I had some problems my senior year of high school and I didn't go to college. Instead I… there were a lot of things. I ended up in Seattle for the WTO protests in '99. Then Greenpeace for a while. I wanted to join the Peace Corps, but that didn't work out. The last two years I was on an organic farm commune, mostly because it let me save money, partly for other reasons…"

"Sure." Jeff nodded, his display of interest more sincere than he'd expected. Partly it was her shy confidence. Partly it was just her tone of voice: Annie made organic farm commune sound erotic.

"Then I decided it was time to get back on track. I left… the farm," she continued, her eyes darting away from him in a manner that strongly implied she'd nearly ended that sentence differently. "I don't have the money to take classes anywhere but here, and when I realized I don't want to be a hippie…" She trailed off with a shrug.

"Nobody wants to be a hippie," Jeff declared. "It's basically being homeless, but with better PR."

Annie shrugged. "Don't get me wrong, hippies are great people. But they don't plan for tomorrow, or think much about long-term sustainability, or really much of anything besides getting wasted and screwing. Getting wasted and screwing is fun up to a point, but only up to a point, you know?"

Jeff tried not to grin like an idiot. Hearing this woman declare screwing is fun was like catnip to him. "Absolutely getting wasted and screwing is fun. Up to a point," he agreed, forcing himself to sound relatively sober. "There's a time and a place for everything."

"Exactly. Like, right now, we're going to study Spanish," Annie said brightly. "As soon as people get here."

"I don't know," Jeff said with exaggerated chagrin, "they may just be flaking out on us. Hippie style."

"Mmm. Maybe they're running late." She glanced at the open door of the study room, then drummed her fingers briefly on the table. "In the meantime, let me turn it around on you — why are you at Greendale?"

"Isn't it enough that I'm not teasing you about living on a pot farm for years?" Jeff asked. Seeing her expression he quickly moved on. If he couldn't dodge the question entirely, he could at least put the best face available on it. "I'm actually a lawyer."

"You're a lawyer and a Spanish tutor?" Annie asked. She sounded less intrigued and more suspicious.

Jeff chuckled, to stall for a second. "Mostly a lawyer," he said. "On the side I volunteer. Help immigrants."

She cocked her head. "You help immigrants… learn Spanish?" It might have been wishful thinking but he thought she sounded more playful than she had a moment earlier.

Jeff grinned. "Yes…?"

Annie was smiling back, and about to say something clever, and then Jeff would respond and they'd keep talking for a bit and then he'd suggest drinks, then dinner, then his place, and already he was considering how they might repeat that with variations a couple more times if she was game, not more than a couple times, nothing crazy, he was here to keep his head down, 2.0 GPA… Her phone, next to her notebook on the table in front of her, buzzed suddenly, and they both started at the unexpected sound.

"Oh," she said, examining it. Her smile had turned slightly wistful. "The others are coming."

Jeff's grin faded. "What?"

"See, I figured you were making up the Spanish tutor thing, and this was your way of asking me out," Annie said, looking away from him. "But then I was thinking about what you said, about the best way to learn being to teach others, and…" She shrugged. "Here they are now," she added with a glance over his shoulder.

Jeff turned to the door, and saw Abed standing there.

"Hello, Annie," said Abed. "Five after four, like you said."

"Hello Abed," Annie replied. "Come on, sit down. The more the merrier, right?"

Abed nodded. He seemed about to move into the room when he stopped, still blocking the doorway. "There's a weird tension here. Jeff's expression keeps changing. Is something wrong? Were you about to make out? Am I interrupting?"

Jeff's mouth had suddenly gone dry. "I…"

"You're not interrupting. We were not about to make out," Annie assured Abed. "At least not right now," she added under her breath, casting a glance Jeff's way.

Abed nodded again, and sat down next to Annie. She passed him the signup sheet.

Jeff frantically tried to come up with a pretext for getting Abed alone so he could explain that yes he was interrupting something, or better yet getting Annie alone and convincing her to blow off Abed and Spanish and skip ahead to the making-out part they both seemed pretty enthused about. Thinking quickly and understanding people, these were his weapons. It didn't seem fair that they would fail him so suddenly. "Yeah, so the thing about that is —"

He broke off as his phone started buzzing on the study room table in front of him. "Oh, jeez, would you look at — I really need to take this, one minute. Back real soon!" Jeff scooped up his phone and dashed out into the hall before Annie could say anything.

* * *

The phone call turned out to be Ian Duncan, his more-or-less friend on the faculty, wanting Jeff's schedule so he could work out who to bribe for exam keys and it was a whole lot of nothing is what it was, Jeff had much bigger fish to fry (Annie, head, 2.0, lawyer. No, that sounded distractingly pornographic and the whole point was to eliminate distractions. Annie, down, 2.0, lawyer. Not much better).

When he came back from a drink of water, a series of stretches, and a pep talk into the mirror in the men's room, Jeff was ready to handle Abed. Handle Abed, sleep with Annie, keep his head down, 2.0 GPA, become a lawyer again. That was the plan and it was a solid plan. Annie, 2.0, lawyer.

Unfortunately there was a snag, in the form of four more people Annie or Abed had invited. At a glance they seemed eminently forgettable, a collection of stock types: befuddled retiree, despondent housewife, aimless stoner, optimistic jock. But, after he had spent a couple of minutes listening to them bicker about Spanish and the learning of Spanish and whether they were Jeff's study group or Annie's study group or what, Jeff found that they were not only forgettable, but downright discomfiting.

Two of them were inarguably age-appropriate for an introductory undergraduate Spanish class. The blonde girl with the dreadlocks and the half-lidded expression of someone for whom 4:20 came early and often — Britta something — had a braying laugh that she deployed whenever the self-consciously uncaring jock — Troy something — opened his mouth. They clearly knew each other, though Jeff couldn't tell whether they were a couple, or whether Britta was just really into Troy. Troy was either an oblivious crush-object or an oddly neglectful boyfriend.

Annie didn't care for Britta, Jeff noticed noticed as he sat down between them. Clearly she'd invited Troy to the group and Britta had just followed along. Why Annie shot Britta arch look after arch look, he couldn't immediately discern. Maybe it was something to do with the time Annie had spent among hippies on a pot farm… in any case, it was something Jeff could use, perhaps, to get Annie out of here and into his bed.

The other two students, who'd somehow ended up between Britta and Troy, didn't seem to know one another, or anyone else at the table. Jeff wondered how Annie had selected them. Shirley Bennett was a slightly familiar woman who looked a few years older than Jeff, heavyset and world-weary in a way that screamed divorcee and money troubles and kids. Business degree, Jeff guessed. And the white guy, Pierce, looked to be a retiree. Probably just circling the drain, killing time until death. His wristwatch was a Rolex, which Jeff would have assumed signaled having better things to do than learn Spanish from a crazy man, but here he was.

Troy was telling a shaggy-dog story about some kind of spirit-week event at their high school wherein Troy and the rest of the football team had worn dresses to classes for a week. "And then, on Thursday, we all wore matching red skirts," he continued.

Britta guffawed. "Red skirts!"

"Yeah, red skirts," Troy repeated, glancing at her.

"You're so funny, Troy," Britta said, still snorting with laughter.

"Uh, thanks." Troy watched Britta giggle as though unsure whether they'd met before.

"So Britta, you and Troy went to the same high school," Annie declared. Her arms were folded and her face free from all expression.

"Heh, heh, yeah." Britta nodded as she sighed happily. "Riverside —"

"You went to my school?" Troy asked, surprised.

"Uh, yeah," Britta replied, rolling her eyes. "You remember me!"

"Uh…"

"You remember! Last April? Marty Tern's house party?" Britta stretched and tossed her hair. "We got high and made out in the man-cave?"

Pierce coughed. "I'm sorry, did she say man-cave?" He chuckled.

Everyone ignored him.

Troy's brow was furrowed as he tried to remember. "Uhhhhh…."

"Britta Perry!" the blonde cried.

"Britta! Right! Wow!" said Troy. Jeff was almost certain that he wasn't her neglectful boyfriend. "What are you doing here?"

"Learning Spanish, same as you!" Britta said with an enthusiasm that dwarfed the rest of the study group's combined. "I mean, my lame parents were like, 'if you're going to stay here you need to get a job or go to school,' so…" She shrugged.

Shirley hummed disapprovingly. "I'll bet."

"Okay, great," said Jeff. He clapped his hands together, because the sooner the actual studying started the sooner it ended and the sooner he could get back to Annie, 2.0, lawyer. "Who wants to take the lead on this study session?" He turned expectantly to Annie.

"What?" She looked expectantly back at him. "You claimed to be a tutor. Tute, already. Demonstrate your tutoring prowess."

The challenge in her eyes was so intense — show me why you deserve my attention — that Jeff found himself nodding. "Yo no soy una bebida pequeña," he said to the group. Random Spanish-sounding syllables.

"What?" Shirley asked.

"I am a fluent speaker of Spanish," Jeff translated. "You can call me Jeff, or, par español, el Hefe. Mi nombre es altavoz de nabo cabeza."

Next to him, Annie let out an almost inaudible squeak of laughter.

"Bienvenidos a la casa de los limones," Jeff concluded. "And I think we all know what that means."

"Something about lemons," Troy guessed.

"Casa means house," offered Shirley.

"We should probably start by looking at the first chapter in the textbook," Annie suggested. "Not that I want to tell el Hefe how to do his job."

"Does the first chapter have a lemon house?" asked Abed, interested. He and the others began to leaf through their textbooks.

"Well, el Hefe?" Annie asked him, eyes down on the text in front of her.

Sensing he was losing her, Jeff went with his gut. Annie didn't seem to like Britta, Britta liked Troy. "Troy," he said, "why don't you tell us how you know Britta, since you two are the only ones here who know each other, and then we'll take that story and translate it into Spanish?"

"Ooh, good idea," said Britta, sitting up in her seat.

Troy chuckled nervously. "I don't know, man, we're still on the first section of the first chapter…"

"So, 'hello,' " Jeff said, nodding. "And 'my name is,' and, you know. Just a simple little dialogue."

"There wasn't a lot of dialogue at the time," Britta said, batting her eyelashes — literally batting her eyelashes! — at Troy.

"Okay, dial it back," Shirley told Britta.

"What?" Britta asked, affronted.

"None of us want to hear about any damn horny teenagers —"

"You don't speak for everyone!" Pierce interrupted.

Jeff waited a few more seconds, until Troy, Britta, Pierce, and Shirley were all four involved in a multi-threaded argument about safe sex, freedom of speech, Christianity's applicability in the modern world, and Colorado drug policy. Then he quietly scooted his chair back and snuck out.

He stopped when he reached the hallway beyond, took a breath, and counted silently. Six… seven… eight…

"Where are you going?" Annie carefully closed the door behind her. She trained her big eyes on him.

Jeff sighed. In the moment his intent had been to reverse the events of the last few minutes using unknown magic, which wasn't a workable plan, he was forced to admit. "I can't tutor those people," he said. "I mean, listen to them."

He and Annie eyed the closed door to the study room. Distant shouting could be heard through it — something about Obama and Michael Jackson.

"Mmm." Annie gave a sympathetic hum. "Plus you don't speak Spanish."

Jeff's shoulders sagged in relief. "I already used all the Spanish I know."

"More Spanish than you know," she corrected, smiling.

"More Spanish than I know." Jeff grimaced, then brightened when he saw the wry look in her eyes. "You want to just call this whole experience off, start over again? I know a place that does this new thing where they sell drinks with, get this, alcohol in them…?" he offered, with a hopeful lilt.

"I knew you weren't really a tutor," Annie said, shaking her head as her smile faded. "But I'm disappointed you're quitting."

"It's hard!" cried Jeff. He wasn't exactly happy to have let her down — it put a real kink in his Annie, head down, 2.0 GPA, lawyer plan.

"You just quit as soon as it gets hard?" She sounded resigned then, surprise giving way to a settled disappointment she seemed to find familiar.

"Yes. No. Ugh. Do you have to keep looking at me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like you think that just by looking at me like that, you can make me want to… you don't even know me, so…" Jeff took a breath. "Watch this."

He stepped past her and opened the study room door. The faint sounds of argument suddenly grew louder.

"—and anyone who says otherwise is the real racist!"

"I'll show your ass the real racist!"

"People!" Jeff yelled. "People, please." He held up his hands and successfully commanded silence. "What exactly is the problem?"

Britta spoke first. "This hypocrite," she crooked a thumb towards Shirley, "has the audacity to call me a sinner!"

"We're all sinners," Shirley retorted with a disdainful sniff. "You're just being crass."

"Okay," said Jeff. He took a breath. "Realistically, people screw. Also, people aspire to virtue. So you're both stupid, and you're both also right. We're all stupid and right. That's what binds us together as fallible humans who continuously strive to better ourselves and get laid."

"I once slept with Eartha Kitt," Pierce called out.

"See?" Jeff said, pointing at him. "We're insecure. We're all insecure. We make up transparent lies about Eartha Kitt —"

"It's not a lie! It was 1965, and for my twenty-first birthday I went to Frisco—"

"Eartha Kitt was thirty-eight in 1965," Abed said. "You'd just turned twenty-one?"

"Not relevant," Jeff said, before the derailment could proceed further. "None of us are here because of great choices —"

"Speak for yourself," muttered Britta. Pierce tried to high-five her, but she shook her head no.

"I'm going to back up and start again," Jeff said. "We're all fallible, we all strive, yadda yadda, glass houses, stones, let's study España."

"Español," supplied Annie from the doorway behind him.

"Exactly." Jeff nodded, as though his point was made. Most of his courtroom delivery was predicated on the notion that tone and cadence mattered much more to swaying juries' opinions than the specific words he said.

There was a long pause.

"Well, I'm in," said Shirley. "I mean, that was stupid, but I've completely forgotten what we were arguing about."

"Me too!" said Britta cheerily.

Abed bobbed his head. "Let's bond over an unexpected shared interest!" he suggested to Troy.

"All right man, sure. You like football?"

Abed shook his head. "No."

Troy tried again. "Basketball?"

"No."

"Golf?"

"No."

"Movies?"

"Yes!" Abed nodded happily.

"I like movies too!" cried Pierce. He and Abed high-fived.

Jeff sat back down at the study room table. "Wow," he said quietly as Annie sat down next to him. "I'm kind of surprised that worked."

Annie shrugged. "People surprise you. Now, let's study. I might have a date later." She gave Jeff a sidelong smile.

Jeff tried not to grin as he opened his Spanish textbook. He had a simple plan. Annie, 2.0, lawyer. Annie, 2.0, lawyer.

Annie. That was the plan, and it was a good plan.


	2. Chapter 2

Annie Edison had a problem.

She'd woken up a month ago, among filthy sheets and the stink of patchouli, and asked herself what are you doing? The answer seemed obvious: wasting her life. And for the first time in a long time she'd felt ready and able to get back on track. She'd written out a plan for herself at the age of fourteen: good extracurriculars, good college, good college boyfriend, good career, good husband, a daughter of her own to love and micromanage. That had been before the hell that was high school, before the Adderall, before the breakdown and the fleeing in the middle of the night, before the tear gas and the solidarity and the backpacking and the sleeping under a tarp and the time at sea both literally and figuratively. Once she'd thought she could save the world, one peace protest at a time, but that optimism had been drained out of her, one peace protest at a time. Now she was close enough to thirty that some of her original plans had become unrealistic, plus there was the whole filthy-sheets problem.

But she'd pushed ahead, because at the end of the day she wasn't about to give up before she'd even started. She wrote out a new plan for herself: first she'd go back to school, and shine so brightly as to burn away ten years of decay. Then she'd get a solid job in a solid field. Medical school wasn't on the table, at least not immediately, but she could get work in healthcare administration, she was sure of that. Once she had a career, more or less like she'd wanted once upon a time, with health insurance and a 401(k), then maybe a relationship. Maybe. She'd be in her mid-30s at that point, and television suggested it wasn't unreasonable to settle down at that age. Maybe she'd find a good guy — honest, supportive, into her, not a junkie, not a Ron Paul supporter, and definitely not a hippie. Or maybe she didn't even want a guy, maybe she'd just get a cat and join a book club. After two years on the pot farm… the organic farming collective… that didn't sound bad.

She'd known what she was doing and everything had been falling into place, and then on the first day at the community college — the first day! — she'd met Jeff Winger. In a moment of weakness she'd let herself be charmed, and then when he'd actually tried to fake his way through a Spanish study session somehow it had been hilarious and endearing, because he was doing it for her, and then…

"Listen," she'd said, several hours after the study session ended. They were standing in a parking lot, because they'd driven to the bar in separate cars. Because she'd planned ahead and foreseen this possibility. Because if she let him give her a ride then she might… "Listen."

"I'm absolutely listening," he'd said, smiling at her with that dopey expression on his face, like he kept being surprised to see her.

"This was a lot of fun," Annie had said, and then she'd seen the tightness flash across his face, because he knew instantly that there was a butcoming. She'd pressed on, though. "And I appreciate el Hefe's enthusiasm for the language of Cervantes and Neruda…" and that was when she'd started trailing off, because she was thinking about the way he'd gamely gone ahead with it when her study group selectees had arrived, and the way he'd given in and studied actual Spanish, and the way he'd admitted it was a ruse and assuming he wasn't a junkie or a closet Ron Paul supporter he more or less ticked off all her boxes, plus he was big and handsome and kept smiling at her.

Jeff had seen her hesitation and pressed his case, making a joke about not knowing who Pablo Neruda was, which was kind of spoiled by his knowing Pablo Neruda's first name was Pablo, and they'd laughed and then he was leaning in to kiss her and she'd really been into that idea…

But then she'd stepped back and shaken her head and said that it was getting late and she needed to get home to wash her plants or water her hair or something, but she'd see him the next day and the day after that, they had Spanish together after all and there was the study group too, so…

Later, in the tiny apartment she could barely afford, Annie tried to decide whether she was relieved or disappointed he hadn't pushed her just a smidge more. Both, she decided, and that was part of the problem. Annie had a plan, and the plan didn't allow for hooking up with a sleazy lawyer, or an ex-lawyer turned community college student, no matter how much he didn't adore Ron Paul. She could gussy it up however she liked, Annie decided, but the problem wasn't going to change or go away. Jeff Winger didn't fit in her plan. He was not a project she had space in her life for, just now.

So her course was clear. One, dating him was clearly off the table. The first time had been hard enough to handle. Meeting him again, for drinks or dinner, or anything one on one, would just create chances for her to slip up. Then she'd fall into bed with him, and then next thing she knew she'd be back in the filthy sheets with the stink of sandalwood or whatever Jeff equivalent of patchouli. Two, he deserved to know where he stood. And three, just because she wasn't going to climb into his lap and lick him so everyone would know he was hers — that didn't mean that they couldn't be friends. Study buddies.

That was the whole point of the study group, after all.

* * *

"Four o'clock?" Annie pointed at Troy and Britta. "Four o'clock?" she repeated, pointing at Abed. "Four o'clock?"

"Do we really need to meet for this?" Britta asked peevishly. She held a large card with GATO printed on it. "I mean, none of you guys have the alligator, right?"

"Nah, I've got an apple." Troy held up his card.

It was just after class. Senor Chang, the instructor, had passed out pairs of cards and given the students a group assignment: find the person whose card matches yours, word or picture, and prepare a short dialogue that hit certain keywords. Annie's card had the Spanish word for 'house' on it. Jeff's — not that she had been looking — was MANZANA, meaning he'd be paired with Troy.

Briefly Annie considered trading her card with Troy's — it wasn't like there was any reason Troy wouldn't be up for it, maybe with a little bit of a bribe like preferential access to Annie's notes. But no, that way lay trouble. "We definitely need to meet," Annie said firmly. "All of us. As a group."

"Absolutely," Jeff said. "Or, alternatively, we could just meet with our partner and chug it out quickly."

"I vote that, the quickly one," Troy said.

Seeing that the tide was turning against her, Annie glared at Jeff (he returned her look with a twinkly smile like he knew something she didn't) and nodded. "All right, then. But we're still doing the review on Friday, right?"

The group nodded their assent, and broke apart.

As the Spanish class thinned out, Annie failed completely to find anyone waving a picture of a house to match her card. She sighed, when the last student turned out to be there early for Intermediate Dutch, not Spanish at all. By then Chang was gone, too, or she'd have complained at him. As it was, Annie reflected, she'd have to email the class to find her partner, who probably had blown the whole thing off because they were lazy and/or careless and/or sloppy and not decent dialogue-partner material…

Pierce had been waiting for her in the hallway. "Abby," he said as she approached, "can you do me a favor?"

"Annie. Sure, what?"

He chuckled nervously. "Ah knee and namaste. Listen, my partner for the dialogue thing is a real dud. Would you mind swapping with me?" Pierce held up his card, with a picture of a cat.

Annie wrinkled her nose. "You don't want to work with Britta?"

"I'll give you fifty bucks," Pierce said, shaking his head. "Take it or leave it."

She blinked in surprise. "Um…"

"A hundred, fine, here!" he snapped. Pierce opened his wallet and dug out five twenties, counting them in his hand. "See?"

"Um, okay," Annie said. She wasn't especially fond of Britta — she had bad associations with white-girl dreadlocks and the scent of pot — but she would have worked with her willingly without the cash bribe. Definitely for much less than that.

Pierce chortled in glee as he pressed the cash into her hand and snatched away her CASA card. "Excellent!"

"Yeah, enjoy…" Annie cocked her head at him, wondering why he'd been so eager to avoid Britta. She was about to ask, when she felt a tap on her shoulder.

"Hey, partner," Jeff said behind her. She turned around and saw him holding a different card than he'd had before — a picture of a house. "Looks like we're… uh…"

"Jeffrey!" cried Pierce, waving the card he'd just taken from Annie like it was a racing flag. "We'll be working together, you and me."

"You switched cards," Annie said weakly.

"So did you!" Jeff hissed.

She turned to Pierce. "I'm sorry, can we —"

"No takesies-backsies!" Pierce cried, pointing at her. There was desperation in his eyes.

Annie held her hands up in surrender. "Okay, but —"

"I'm working with Jeff!" he repeated, almost begging.

"Okay," Annie said.

"Couple of alpha males, ruling the roost!"

"Okay…" Annie nodded. He was clearly deeply invested in working with Jeff on this project, for whatever reason. Probably not the same reason Annie had wanted to work with Jeff. Probably.

"What?" Jeff squinted in confusion. "Pierce, I don't —" He broke off as Annie elbowed him in the ribs.

"Sorry Jeff," she said slowly. "The cards don't lie." She stared up at him, doing her best to communicate look how sad and desperate Pierce is don't you feel sorry for him? without saying anything.

"C'mon, partner," Pierce said to him with forced cheer. "Let's go talk story structure."

"But…" Jeff saw the way Annie was looking at him, and winced. "Fine. Fine."

It was just as well, Annie thought as Pierce led Jeff away. If they'd been alone together for any length of time, who knew what might have happened? She didn't want to get caught up in the moment and make some huge mistake. No matter how good-looking the mistake was.

She was still standing there, considering, as Britta approached her. "Hey," Britta said, "have you seen Pierce? I think I'm supposed to… oh!" She pointed to the cat-card still in Annie's hands. "Cat, right? Not an alligator." Britta held up her own GATO card.

"Huh? Oh. Oh, yeah," Annie said distractedly. "We're working together, I guess."

"I tried to swap with Abed," Britta confided. "I mean, nothing personal, I just wanted to work with Troy. But enh, whatevs." She shrugged. "So you want to go to the study room, or…?"

"Sure, sure." Annie nodded. May as well get it over with.

* * *

Britta turned out to not be so bad, once you got to know her. Annie shouldn't have been surprised — hippies generally were pleasant enough one on one, in her experience. It was just when you got a bunch of them together and expected them to make decisions about the future that you got burned. Burned, or fingered when the narcs showed up… but Britta had nothing to do with that, Annie reminded herself. She was just a teenage girl. Annie had been a teenage girl once, not so long ago, and she'd made more than her fair share of mistakes. It would be unkind to hold Britta to too high a standard.

Mostly Britta wanted to talk about Troy. She seemed to take it as read that Annie was into Troy, the age difference (and the fact that Annie wasn't into Troy) notwithstanding. Britta was full of gossip about Troy in high school, how he'd been the star of the school, how he'd injured himself and lost his football scholarship, how they'd made out once at a party… It took some doing to get Britta (and Shirley, who was also hanging out in the study room, something about making the most of her college experience) to pay attention to the nominal reason for their meeting, the two-person short dialogues.

Me llamo Britta.

Hola, Britta, me llamo Annie. ¿Es agradable el clima? Me gusta cuando es soleado.

Donde esta la biblioteca?

La biblioteca esta en la cuidad. Hay muchos manzanos cerca de allí.

Gracias!

De nada, Britta! Seamos amigos! Me gusta tu sombrero.

After the fourth run-through Annie was confident that Britta had mastered her three lines totaling eight words (seven, not counting her own name).

"Great," she said, after Britta had managed to say 'gracias, Annie,' instead of 'Garcia, Annie' several times in succession. "So, no more references to the Grateful Dead —"

"The what?" Britta looked confused. "I thought we were talking the guy from LOST. Hurley?"

Annie decided to just let that one go.

"Look at us," Shirley cooed, "talking about popular culture like college kids do! Young, carefree college kids, not a care in the world, no kids to support, no ex-husband fighting you for alimony… it's so nice!"

"You know," Annie said, changing the subject, "I almost learned Spanish once before. After Black Thursday, I was going to go to Guatemala —"

"Black Thursday?" asked Britta, casting a sidelong glance at Shirley, who leaned in.

"Jueves negro," Annie said, pronouncing the words carefully. "There was this war criminal running for president, and a bunch of his supporters rioted, and some journalists were killed —"

"Oh my God!" Britta's eyes widened. "There's a war criminal running for president?! Does Obama know?"

Annie blinked, nonplussed. "This was in Guatemala. In 2003."

"Well, he needs to know!"

Annie turned to Shirley for help. "It was in 2003," she repeated.

Shirley had a disgusted look on her face. "So what, you did some activist tourism?"

"What? No!" Annie drew herself up, affronted.

"Because my church used to support this group — Christians for the World — doing missionary work in South America," Shirley continued. "Building churches and schools and whatnot. But then we found out they never did any good. There was an exposé. John Stossel did a report. They were taking our money, flying down there, getting drunk on local hooch, building a shed or something that'd fall down next time it rained, and flying back, first class both ways —"

"No!" Annie shook her head. "No. This was different —"

"So what'd you do?" Britta asked, eyes wide. "Did you tell Obama? What am I saying, it was 2003, he wasn't president. It was the other guy. I bet he didn't even care!"

"I… we…" Annie sighed. "I ended up not doing it," she admitted. "I went to DC and protested the Iraq War instead."

"How'd that work out?" Shirley asked shortly.

"Not great," Annie admitted.

"Mmm-hmm." Shirley rolled her eyes.

"I think we raised awareness, though," Annie said. "That was important, getting the word out, I mean the mainstream media was just cheerleading…"

"Ugh, don't get me started about the mainstream media." Shirley shook her head in commiseration.

"You guys, we need to do something about this Guatemala thing," Britta said urgently. "I heard that journalists are getting killed!"

"Were! Were getting killed!" Annie sank back in her seat. "I mean, I think were. I haven't really been following the news out of Guatemala —"

"We could do a protest here!" suggested Shirley. "I've never been a college student before — this is a chance to be political! I mean, obviously we need to raise awareness, you don't even know what's happening Guatemala right now, and you're the second-most political person I know!"

"Uh…" Annie wondered who the most political person Shirley knew was. Jesus? Probably Jesus.

Britta was nodding her head. "Yeah! People need to know about huevos negro! Sorry, Shirley."

"Do what now?"

"For the negro part…?"

Shirley turned to Annie. "You've done this before — how do we do a protest?"

"How do you do a…?" Annie made a face. "You don't want to organize a protest, you guys, trust me."

"No, no, we do! Just because you're, like, a super protestor person…" Britta scooted forward in her chair.

Shirley nodded. "As much as it surprises me to say so, Britta is right. We just want to help the poor people of Guatemala and call attention to their plight."

"No, no, you're not… it's not that," Annie said, shaking her head. "It's just, if you want to actually help people, protesting is not the way to do it. Definitely not protesting here. That war protest I was talking about, the one I went to instead of Guatemala? It was huge. Twenty thousand people on the National Mall! And that wasn't anything like the biggest one I was part of. The big RNC protest, when I was living in New York in 2004, had hundreds of thousands of participants. Hundreds of protest groups coming together. We danced and we shouted and I got tear gassed, not for the first time… and it didn't make any difference. Nobody had their minds changed. The war went on. Bush was reelected… it was all for nothing. People felt good about it, sure. I had fun. But it didn't fix anything."

There was a moment of silence, as Annie's words sank in.

"You lived in New York?" Britta's voice was full of awe.

* * *

That afternoon Annie's accounting class met for the first time. Technically the second time, but the school hadn't been able to find a qualified instructor in time for the first lecture, so instead of a class they'd watched the first half of Wall Street on VHS.

To her surprise Jeff Winger was in the class, too. "I don't remember seeing you yesterday," she said as she slid into a seat next to him.

He looked up from his phone in surprise, and did a double take. "Okay, I'm definitely staying in this one," he said. "I signed up for a bunch of classes in this slot, to find the easiest. I heard we're just watching movies all semester, which sounded promising, and if you're in it, too—"

"I don't know about all semester." Annie made a so-so gesture. "For one thing, I don't know how many movies even tangentially about accounting or finance they could scrape up."

"Oh, I think you're underestimating Greendale," Jeff replied. "The dean seems like a real go-getter. I bet he could find fifty accounting-related movies on VHS. Trading Places, Brewster's Millions, Other People's Money…"

Annie laughed. "Well, setting aside your unexpected ability to rattle off 80s comedies about finance, that's the other thing! Courses here may be inexpensive, but if we wanted to watch a bunch of old movies on VHS we could probably do it cheaper at home." Annie banished the sudden mental image of her cuddling with Jeff on a couch. "I could do a better job teaching this course."

"Yeah?" Jeff raised an eyebrow.

"Absolutely I could!" Annie sat up straight in her seat. "Ten minutes after the hour, if the professor still hasn't shown up, I'm going to get up, tell everybody I'm Professor Edison, and start lecturing. Accounting, blah blah blah, it's all in the textbook."

"You don't have a syllabus," Jeff pointed out, but he was smiling.

"I can have one ready for tomorrow," she said confidently.

"Hmm, then can I be teacher's pet? Because—"

"Class!" A Herb Tarlek of a man, resplendent in an ugly plaid suit, had materialized at the front of the room. "Class!" he barked again, when they didn't silence themselves quickly enough. "My name is Eustice Whitman! I am here to teach you all about accounting — and by accounting, I mean life!"

He threw a stack of papers in the air, dramatically. "That was the course syllabus! Everyone, take your textbooks and open them to page one!"

Annie, Jeff, and the rest of the class dutifully did so.

"Now rip it out!" Whitman cried. "Rip it to shreds! You won't need a textbook for this class!"

As the room filled with the sound of tearing paper, Jeff and Annie exchanged glances.

"I think I'll just return this at the bookstore," Annie muttered. "Get some store credit."

Jeff nodded, and looked like he was about to say something, but then instead he looked up in surprise as Whitman suddenly loomed over them both. "What's this?" he thundered. "Throw those books aside! Life doesn't come with an instruction manual!"

"Yeah, but we did pay money for these," Jeff said.

"Money, money, money! Is that all you can think of?" Whitman made a face. "Seize the day! Tomorrow you could be hit by a bus — what use would your precious money be then?"

"It'd help with the hospital bills," Jeff suggested.

"Money, money, money," Whitman repeated, scowling. "Life isn't about money, life is about living! This course isn't about money —"

"Isn't it, though?" Annie asked wryly, her brow furrowed. "I mean, it is accounting —"

"It's about seizing the moment! Get up out of those chairs, you two! In fact, everybody! Everybody up!" Whitman gestured as though he were conducting an orchestra. "We're going to go skipping through the science department!"

* * *

After fifty-five minutes of skipping, hopping, dancing, and even a little prancing, Whitman finally dismissed them. Homework was flying a kite or playing a game of hacky sack, whichever spoke to your inner spirit.

"And here I am without either," Jeff said as he walked with Annie towards the library. "It's enough to make a man lie and claim the string of his kite broke, and he ran after it, watching as the small red plastic triangle vanished into the upper atmosphere."

"Mmm. I might have a hacky sack in my bag," Annie said. She rooted around in her tote for a bit. "Yeah, here, see?" She produced a small purple knitted footbag, which she tossed to Jeff. "Here, keep it."

He grinned when he caught it, thankfully didn't ask why she had it, and Annie had to remind herself — again — that Jeff Winger was a distraction from getting her life back on track, one that she couldn't afford because she'd lost too much time already.

"How's working with Pierce?" she asked, because it was the least romantic conversational topic she could think of.

Jeff grimaced. "He spent lunch lecturing me on the story circle and three-act versus five-act structure."

"Aw," Annie cooed. "You know the dialogue only needs to be about six lines long, right?"

"You know that and I know that…" He shook his head. "We're supposed to meet again in a bit to wrap it up. Though, I mean, it's always possible I might be so busy playing hacky sack that I lose track of time and accidentally stand him up…"

Annie shuddered suddenly, Jeff's words unexpectedly conjuring bad memories. "Ugh! No. I mean," she said, trying to cover, "Pierce was really set on working with you, remember? You should play along…"

"Why?"

She snorted. "Because he'd really appreciate it? And because you don't get that many chances to make other people's lives better without it costing you anything?"

"Spending hours listening him to him dissect the hero's journey is costing me something," he countered.

"He just thinks that you're cool," Annie said, cocking her head at him. "I think he thinks that if you two team up and do a presentation in front of the class, everyone will think he's cool, too. I'm just saying, noblesse oblige."

"Easy for you to say, I… what is that?" Jeff stopped as they turned the corner around Borchert Hall.

In the quad, Britta and Shirley had set up a table and were selling brownies to an interested crowd. BROWNIES AGAINST FASCISM, their sign said. Proceeds presumably going to whatever international aid group a born-again homemaker and a poor-little-rich-girl stoner could agree on.

The table wasn't what had given Jeff pause, though. "Seriously, what is that?"

"That is an effigy of August Pinochet on an unlit bonfire," Annie observed with some awe.

"Pinochet? Are you sure?"

"Definitely, I mean, look at the uniform," Annie said, pointing. "I have to say I'm impressed. I was just talking to them about activism an hour ago."

Britta had gotten a bullhorn from somewhere and was attracting a crowd. "We're lighting him up as soon as we've sold one thousand pot brownies!"

"They're not pot brownies!" Shirley shouted.

"Sorry, force of habit!" Britta crowed through the bullhorn. "We're lighting him up as soon as we've sold one thousand boring normal brownies!"

"Where did they even get a thousand brownies?" Jeff wondered aloud. "You think they robbed a food truck?"

Shirley said something to Britta that Annie couldn't hear from so far off.

"Sorry again! One hundred brownies! And they are not boring normal brownies! They are delicious and fudgy and Shirley has magical powers that allow her to make of brownies out of thin air!" bellowed Britta.

From across the quad Annie could see Shirley making the sign of the cross and remonstrating with Britta.

"Not out of thin air! She works hard and she expects to be reimbursed for the cost of ingredients out of our gross profit! I don't know why I'm telling you guys this!"

"Now see," Jeff said, "I have to blow Pierce off because how could anyone miss this?"

Annie gave him an entreating look. "Come on," she said. "He's a lonely old man. If you go I'll save you a brownie."

Jeff grinned at her before muttering something about sugar and fat.

* * *

To their credit, Shirley and Britta kept at it until they hit their hundred-brownie mark, a little after sunset. The gathered crowd, Annie included, cheered as Shirley lit the Pinochet effigy up, and cheered more as the Greendale Community College Fashion Club and Volunteer Fire Department, who had been standing by, immediately doused it with foam extinguishers. It was quite a display.

The effect was only somewhat ruined by Pierce running out of the library screaming and trying to leap onto the fire before it was fully out. Annie joined the mob that hauled him off the heaped firewood and back onto his feet.

"Pierce! What happened?" Annie asked, as she, Britta, and Shirley led Pierce to a picnic table to calm down with a brownie and a bottle of water.

"Jeff Winger happened!" Pierce harrumphed theatrically. "Things were said that men don't say to one another."

"Aww!" cooed Britta and Shirley in unison. They exchanged surprised glances.

"That sounds awful," Annie said sympathetically, though she suspected Jeff was no more than fifty percent to blame, at worst.

"Jeff is a terrible human being," Pierce declared. "Thinks he's too cool for school! He refuses to work with me, he won't do any work, he's an impossible diva who offers no creative solutions and who will not accept notes in the spirit they were intended!"

Annie hummed. "That does sound pretty bad."

"Have another brownie," Shirley said, offering it to him.

"They're only six dollars! Proceeds go to TBD," Britta added.

Pierce waved the second brownie away. "I don't need brownies. I don't need anything! I especially don't need respect. When you're cool, you don't need people telling you you're cool. You don't care what people think. That's what's actually cool, is not caring. I don't care!"

There was a moment of silence.

Britta leaned in. "I have some better brownies, if you know what I mean," she whispered loudly. "I don't mean brownies."

Pierce perked up, interested. "Yeah?"

Britta started fishing in her backpack. "It's in here…"

"Okay, I'm standing up and walking away now," Annie said brightly. "I'll see you all tomorrow!" she called over her shoulder, as she left before she saw anything irrefutably illegal happening.

"I'll come with!" Shirley rose quickly and joined her. "That Britta is a sweet girl but if my boys smoked that much they'd be in prison already," she muttered to Annie. "Do all white teens get high?"

"I mainly did uppers," Annie said absently, as she led Shirley back into the library to look for Jeff. They didn't find him.

* * *

The next morning she did see him, just before Spanish class.

"I tried," Jeff told her as soon as he saw her. "I tried! Pierce is impossible to handle. He's like Orson Welles and Marlon Brando had a son who grew up with deep-seated insecurity on account of being the creation of deviant science."

"I know," she said. "I know. I think he has been very lonely for a long time, and doesn't know how to make friends."

He scoffed. "Not really worthy of your pity. I mean, I don't really know how to make friends, either."

"You do! We're friends," Annie pointed out.

"Yes, but I really want to sleep with you," he countered.

"Not happening," Annie said quickly.

Jeff nodded. "I know, I know, you've made that clear," he said dismissively. "Doesn't change the nature of my motivation. I still want to sleep with you. Kiss you, pet you… even just hang out. Talk with you…team up, I don't know…" Jeff made a face, apparently hearing himself for the first time. "Dammit, we are friends, aren't we? I've only known you for two days. How did you do that?"

"I can't help being extremely likable," she said with a smile. Then, because this was an extremely dangerous topic of conversation, she pivoted. "I feel bad for Pierce."

"Yeah, well…"

Jeff's response was cut off by Chang. The Spanish teacher announced that he'd heard Pierce's story of epic betrayal and Jeff's monstrous inability to engage in cooperative creative activity, and come to a decision. Jeff would be excused from the assignment.

To Annie's surprise, Jeff protested, declaring that their presentation demanded to be performed and performed properly.

As he rose to perform the scene with Pierce, Annie flashed Jeff a pleased smile. He leaned down and muttered in her ear. "In about ten minutes I'm going to need you to wear a gag and let me duct tape your wrists together," he told her.

Annie bit her tongue to avoid undercutting the whole no-sleeping-together rule she'd just then laid out. "Okay," she said instead.

* * *

After Jeff and Pierce's performance (F, F minus, and Annie had ten points deducted from her scene because she willingly played the role of Irma, the Captive Indian Princess) the two walked together towards the cafeteria. "

I gotta say, I'm impressed," Annie began. "You—"

Suddenly Professor Whitman was standing in front of them, blocking their way. "I am not impressed!" he cried.

Jeff did a double take. "Where did you come from?"

"You two are exactly the kind of cynics I've made it my mission to weed out — don't think I didn't see how you were smirking and whispering to one another all through class yesterday! Usually it takes me a few days to spot the Nellie No-Funs who sidle in thinking they can score an easy A. You can thank each other's snarking for the ease with which I sussed you out!"

"Wait, what?" Jeff asked.

"You both get Fs! I suggest you withdraw before the drop period ends!"

"Why?!"

"Because you won't seize the day! You won't reach out and take what you want! You'll just stand back and crack wise like a couple of wisenheimers while the rest of us live life to the fullest! I won't be party to it!"

"That seems kind of unfair," said Annie. "I've seized the day! I've seized the day plenty. It got me arrested alongside three hundred other women during Occupy Wall Street! Now I'm seizing my future."

Whitman harrumphed. "You've lived in New York?"

Annie shrugged. "Yeah. It's not really that impressive."

"All right, I'll allow it." Whitman turned to Jeff. "Your girlfriend may have an excuse — she's obviously done a lot of day-seizing! But what have you —"

"Not his girlfriend," Annie interjected. "Seriously, just friends."

"You didn't have to say it so quickly," Jeff said, a little upset.

"Sorry, I just don't want anyone to get the wrong idea. I mean, do I like you? Yes, yes I do. Am I attracted to you? Yes, yes I am. But —" Annie broke off as she suddenly had a massive stroke.

No. Not a stroke. Her spirit had left her body and she was floating on a psychedelic cloud made of acid flashbacks. No, that wasn't true either. She was eight years old again, riding her bicycle down a steep hill. No. Jeff Winger was kissing her. Yes. She was kissing Jeff Winger. That was happening. That was happening. That was wonderful. That was a problem…

"Day seized!" Whitman cried, satisfied.


End file.
